Further reading for The Tragedy of the Essex
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Tragedy of the Essex refers to a whaling ship launched from Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1799. In 1820, following a rough go of it as they rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South America. The ship first took severe damage from a sudden storm in the south pacific followed by the discovery that the seas they intended to hunt for whales had been hunted to a point that no whales could be found. Upon hearing of a new hunting ground, The Essex headed for these new waters and found the seas calm and without whales as well. But after several weeks at sea they finally found one. The whale that was spotted seemed to lure them over and once engaged it rammed their ship and then continued to attack until it was damaged to such a point that it was taking on too much water to repair at sea. Left with no choice but to scuttle the vessel, the ship’s crew took to the small whaling vessels as the ship sank. To this day, no one knows why the whale attacked. This is uncharacteristic behavior for such animals.
The crew drifted in their whaling boats for a month, surviving on what small supplies remained until they ran out and then, with the entire surviving contingent of 21 men on the edge of death by dehydration, they made landfall on a small coral atoll where they foolishly ate everything that was edible to the point that food ran out, completely. With no choice but to move on, the crew left, with three remaining on the atoll. Had the other stayed, they would have been rescued.
What follows is the sordid tale of survival that we’re all so familiar with, see also: The Donner Party and The USS Indianapolis. With nothing to eat, the men were left with no choice but to eat each other. At first, they ate the men who died before the rest but once those bodies were used up, they took to deciding a grim fate for those who would be sacrificed for the survival of the others.
This is the story that inspired Moby Dick.
Episodes 520-521
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